Qingdao, Diocese of

TSINGTAO, DIOCESI of. — On the coast of the Yellow Sea, in the southeastern part of the province of Shantung, in northern China.

It was erected as an apostolic prefecture on 11 February 1925 from 12 civil subprefectures of the Yenchow mission (v.) and was entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Society of the Divine Word. On 14 June 1928 it was elevated to an apostolic vicariate; on 1 July 1937 it ceded 5 civil subprefectures to CHIOS (v.), and on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese, suffragan of Tainan. It has an area of 17,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1950, out of a total population of approximately 3,500,000 inhabitants, there were 23,588 Catholics; 28 priests, of whom 10 were Chinese; and 87 nuns, most of them Chinese. Among its institutions were 2 hospitals, 7 medicine dispensaries, 6 orphanages, and 29 schools. The beginnings of Christian preaching in the territory of T. are due to the Verbite religious, who arrived in the southern region of Shantung in 1882 (v. YENCHOW). At the time of its erection (1925), T. had 20,000 Cath-

olics, the oldest of whom had been converted approximately 35–40 years earlier. In the territory ceded for the erection of Ichow in 1937, there were 15,587 faithful. Among the missionaries deserving particular mention are the first apostolic vicar of southern Shantung, Msgr. Giovanni Battista von Anzer (1886–1904), and Fr. Giuseppe Freinademetz, who worked there extensively and with abundant results.